Assistant Professor Texas Children's Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine
Otitis media with effusion (OME) is common in children and characterized by fluid in the middle ear without signs or symptoms of acute ear infection. Fluid in the middle ear causes conducting hearing loss. OME has a significant impact on health care costs, and recurrent or persistent OME can affect the proper speech development of children. Frequently OME resolves itself; therefore, guidelines strongly recommend watchful waiting for three months, after which treatment options are tympanostomy tubes and/or adenoidectomy. However, OME often recurs after these procedures. Furthermore, there are various short and long-term side-effects of tympanostomy tubes. In Eustachian tube dilation, a balloon catheter is used to dilate the cartilage part of the eustachian tube via nasal endoscopy. FDA does not currently approve Eustachian tube dilation in the pediatric population. Still, it has recently been trialed in children with therapy-resistant recurrent OME, chronic tympanic membrane retraction, and inflammatory ear diseases with promising results. Risk and complications rates are low and similar to the adult population. In this session, the criteria for children were included in the study and associated procedures such as adenoidectomy and myringotomy. Finally, the type of approach, both in the clinic and in the OR setting, will be discussed.